Live Blogging and More to Love on Rizzo

Sunday is Blogger Day II at the park. I’ll be there, hopefully doing some sort of live blog. So if you’re gonna watch Sunday’s game, check back in to the Nationals Review and hit refresh. You can see comments as we make ’em, from all of our incredulous reactions at blown calls to excitement at Dunninghammerman home runs. Yeah that’s my new nickname for the middle of the lineup. Dunninghammerman.

Yes, scouting, for that is Rizzo’s deep root system. For the last decade, baseball has had a debate between those baseball lifers with an eye for the game — like Rizzo’s dad and Boras — and the younger, polished, generally more educated “Moneyball” types.

“I’m a hybrid,” says Rizzo, who then does his ode-to-Sabermetrics riff about the value of knowing Value Over Replacement Player and WHIP. “My dad still doesn’t buy it. But there’s a place for it. Why not use all the tools?… it’s not that tough.”

For me, evaluation is about stats the way it is about makeup, build and character. There all just tools and pieces and measurements. If you ignore EITHER (SABR people who think character means nothing, and old schools scouts who think the “new” stats are worthless) you’re missing the whole picture. Good to see the new GM is the kind of guy who seems to embrace it all.